1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure is related to a playback control device, playback control system, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In these days, a communication management system (e.g. a conference system) has been popular, which communicates video data such as image data and sound data between a plurality of communication terminals via a communication network such as the Internet. In addition, widespread broadband environments enable the communication management system to transmit and receive high quality image and sound data. Thus, the communication management system helps a user to understand the condition of another party in a remote conference, and they may participate in the remote conference as if they were in the same room.
It is also known that such a communication management system stores the video data (e.g. recorded video) pertaining to the communication between the communication terminals and manages the video data to make it viewable.
Patent Document 1 shows a method to register allowed users who may play recorded video of conference to conference data when the conference is reserved; and to play the recorded video in response to a request from one of the allowed users having been registered to access the conference data.
However, the conventional communication management system has a disadvantage whereas easily managing the playback control of each communication terminal for the recorded video of a multipoint conference. That may cause a security issue concerning a reference range of the recorded video.
For example, when managers in branch offices report for a central office in a general meeting hosted by the central office using the communication management system, employees of respective branch offices have to be allowed to playback a part of the recorded video relating to their boss's report. In addition, when a conference between three or more different companies is recorded, a part of the record in which two companies have a discussion must not be provided to the other companies.
However, in the conventional method it is not possible to play only a part of the recorded video of the conference in which a certain user (a terminal) joins the conference. In addition, a reservation for joining the conference is expected in this method. A user has to configure the allowed users in advance which may playback the recorded video. Thus, it is not easy to manage the playback. Furthermore, it is difficult for this method to manage the playback when users (communication terminals) can freely join and leave an ongoing conference.